Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/109

 refracted into their natural colors may convey to us the thought or image of the "Gem of the Mountains"; but when the word is uttered in a Shoshoni camp, at early dawn, the hearer knows that a rim of sunlight is coming down the mountainside as the sun is rising in the opposite direction, and that it is time for him to be up and at the labors of the day; just as much so as a person hearing the English expressicm, "It's sim up," knows that the sun has risen in the sky and he should be up and at work.

The idea conveyed by "Ee-dah-how" may be a kind of sun worship as contended by some, but it appears to me to be no more so than is the English expression, ^*It's sun up." This exclamation expresses to the primeval mind a confidence in the continuance of nature, for the sun has returned to replenish all things, and this display on the mountainside is the evidence; and to the Indian mind this exhibition of an eternal sun making its first appearance upon an everlasting mountain denotes a stableness worthy of his attention and is his signal to arise, as he habitually does at the first appearance of "Ee-dah-how."

The effect which day and night might have had upon the habits of primitive man is a subject within the province of the anthropologist. However, we are informed that civilized man is ofttimes influenced by custom survivals and will, long after the necessary fact for a certain action has ceased, continue to act as if it were still in existence. Whatever might have been the reason, in times past, we know and realize that the expression, "It's sun up," has a meaning to the majority of mankind of an influence which the rising sun has upon his actions. The emphasis in this expressi(m, "Ee-dah-how," is placed upon the "Dah" syllable, as it is the keynote to the utterance, for the eternal sun arrayed upon the everlasting mountain is the splendor which the speaker wishes to especially impress upon his hearer. The Indian has a name for sunrise, sunset, morning and evening, but "Ee-dah-how" conveys the idea of a beginning or renewal of natural phenomena and the sunrise is the